Sexual partner age preferences of homosexual and heterosexual men and women.

The sexual age preferences of 192 adults (equal groups of heterosexual men, heterosexual women, homosexual men, and homosexual women) were examined. Participants rated the sexual attractiveness of pictures of 15 male and 15 female faces arranged into five apparent average age categories ranging from 18 to 60 years. It was predicted that homosexual and heterosexual men would prefer younger partners of their preferred sex than would homosexual and heterosexual women and that age preference would not vary with participant age. Both predictions were supported, although homosexual women preferred older partners than expected. Results suggest that age and sex preferences develop independently.

Dissimulation in phallometric testing of rapists' sexual preferences.

Sexual preferences of 38 rapists were assessed phallometrically with and without a semantic tracking task in a counterbalanced design. Four categories of audiotaped vignettes describing neutral interactions, consenting sex, rape, and nonsexual violence were employed as stimuli. In the semantic tracking task, participants were instructed to press one button when violent events were described in the vignette and another when sexual activities were described. Phallometric assessment with the semantic task better discriminated between rapists and non-sex-offender participants (from an earlier study) than the same assessment without the task. Among four rapists who had previous experience with phallometric testing, there was a very strong correlation between deviance scores and tracking accuracy. Results suggest that the semantic task may improve discriminant validity, particularly among sex offenders who have had previous experience with phallometric assessment.

Perceived crime severity and biological kinship.

Two predictions concerning the perceived severity of crimes can be derived from evolutionary theory. The first, arising from the theory of inclusive fitness, is that crimes in general should be viewed as more serious to the degree that the victim is genetically related to the perpetrator. The second, arising from the deleterious effects of inbreeding depression, is that heterosexual sexual coercion should be perceived as more serious the closer the genetic relationship of victim and perpetrator, particularly when the victim is a female of fertile age. Two hundred and thirty university students estimated the magnitude of the severity of brief crime descriptions in three separate studies. In the first two, the biological kinship of victim and perpetrator was varied, and in the third, the hypothetical genetic relatedness of the subject and the fictitious victim was varied. All three studies found the linear relationships between biological kinship and perceived crime severity predicted by theory.

Pavlovian conditioning of sexual interests in human males.

Pavlovian conditioning of the human male sexual response may be involved in the ontogenetic development of sexual interests and may be responsible for individual differences. We attempted to demonstrate Pavlovian conditioning of sexual interests in a nonclinical sample of adult males. Ten participants were exposed to 11 pairings of a slide of a moderately attractive, partially nude female adult (TARGET) and a highly arousing videotape depiction of heterosexual sexual interactions (US). Ten other participants were exposed to 11 presentations of the TARGET alone. Participants exposed to the TARGET-US contingency showed a 10% relative increase in sexual arousal to the TARGET; participants exposed to the TARGET-ALONE contingency showed an 11% relative decrease in sexual arousal to the TARGET. This group difference is interpreted as resulting from both conditioning and habituation.

Viewing time as a measure of sexual interest among child molesters and normal heterosexual men.

Although phallometric assessment is the best scientific method for measuring male sexual interest, it is intrusive and highly technical. We examined viewing time as an unobtrusive and technically simple measure of sexual preference and compared the discrimination obtained by viewing time measures with that obtained by phallometric measures. Slides of nude males and females of various ages were shown to child molesters and normal men while their viewing times were recorded. Subjects then rated the sexual attractiveness of the stimulus persons. Phallometric assessments using the same stimulus categories were also given to some of the Ss. Deviance scores calculated from the viewing time data significantly discriminated between the child molesters and the normals, although the discrimination achieved was less than that obtained using phallometric measures. Sexual attractiveness ratings did not differentiate the two groups. Among the normal men, viewing time and sexual attractiveness ratings were highly correlated; but the correlation was much lower for child molesters. Viewing time shows considerable promise as an unobtrusive measure of male sexual interest.

Why children from the same family are so different from one another : A Darwinian note.

The well-established finding that siblings growing up in the same family turn out to be very different from one another has puzzled psychologists and behavior geneticists alike. In this theoretical note we describe the possible ontogeny and phylogeny of a sibling differentiation mechanism. We suggest that sibling competition for parental investment results in sibling differentiation on a number of characteristics, producing different developmental trajectories within families. Variations in developmental trajectories within families may have had fitness advantages in ancestral environments because(a) sibling competition for extrafamilial resources would be reduced and(b) these variations would be suited to environments containing a variety of niches or to changing environments. Predictions derived from this model and an example of an application to attachment theory are presented.

Psychopathy as a taxon: evidence that psychopaths are a discrete class.

Taxometric analyses were applied to the construct of psychopathy (as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist) and to several variables reflecting antisocial childhood, adult criminality, and criminal recidivism. Subjects were 653 serious offenders assessed or treated in a maximum-security institution. Results supported the existence of a taxon underlying psychopathy. Childhood problem behaviors provided convergent evidence for the existence of the taxon. Adult criminal history variables were continuously distributed and were insufficient in themselves to detect the taxon.

Authoritarianism and sexual aggression.

In Study 1, 198 men completed the Right Wing Authoritarianism, Sex Role Ideology, Hostility Towards Women, Acceptance of Interpersonal Violence, Adversarial Sexual Beliefs, and Rape Myth Acceptance scales, as well as measures of past sexually aggressive behavior and likelihood of future sexual aggression. As predicted, authoritarianism and sex role ideology were as closely related to self-reported past and potential future sexually aggressive behavior as were the specifically sexual and aggression-related predictors. Among 134 men in Study 2, authoritarianism and sex guilt positively correlated with each other and with self-reported past sexual aggression. In both studies, the relationship of authoritarianism and sexual aggression was larger in community than in university samples.

Assessing suspected child molesters.

Clinical evaluations can play a useful role in making a variety of dispositional decisions concerning child molesters provided they are done carefully, using relevant techniques, and their limitations are clearly understood. Assessment instruments and techniques that can differentiate child molesters from other persons, that are related to treatment planning, and that predict the commission of future sexual offending are the most useful. Sex offense history and phallometric assessments are useful in planning treatment and supervision programs and in assessing risk. The Psychopathy Checklist is also a strong predictor of sexual recidivism but its usefulness in treatment planning is equivocal. Measures of attitudes and beliefs that support child molestation are suitable for designing treatment programs but their prognostic significance remains to be established. More general measures of personality and psychopathology have not been established as predictors of recidivism but can be used to address collateral clinical issues.

Sexual recidivism among child molesters released from a maximum security psychiatric institution.

The recidivism of 136 extrafamilial child molesters who had received phallometric assessment in a maximum security psychiatric institution from 1972 to 1983 was determined over an average 6.3-year follow-up. Fifty had participated in behavioral treatment to alter inappropriate sexual age preferences. Thirty-one percent of the subjects were convicted of a new sex offense, 43% committed a violent or sexual offense, and 58% were arrested for some offense or returned to the institution. Subjects convicted of a new sex offense had previously committed more sex offenses, had been admitted to correctional institutions more frequently, were more likely to have been diagnosed as personality disordered, were more likely to have never married, and had shown more inappropriate sexual preferences in initial phallometric assessment than those who had not. Behavioral treatment did not affect recidivism.

Validity of physiological measures of pedophilic sexual arousal in a sexual offender population: a critique of Hall, Proctor, and Nelson.

It is argued that methodological problems in Hall, Proctor, and Nelson's (1988) comparison of phallometric data on child molesters and rapists include confounding of stimulus category and duration, omission of neutral stimuli and a normal control group, failure to employ relative measures of sexual preference, and failure to exclude subjects who did not respond to the sexual stimuli. Quinsey and Laws maintain that, although these methodological problems preclude accepting the conclusions drawn in Hall et al.'s article, the problems illustrate the need to develop common methodological standards for phallometric research on sexual offenders.

Arsonists and sexual arousal to fire setting: correlation unsupported.

The penile responses of 26 firesetters and 15 nonfiresetters to audiotaped narratives were compared. The categories of narratives were: neutral, heterosexual sexual activity, and firesetting motivated by sexual excitement, general (unspecified) excitement, insurance, revenge, heroism, or power. Responses to all of the categories were of small magnitude, although both the heterosexual activity and the sexual excitement firesetting categories elicited larger responses than the neutral category. There were no significant differences between the firesetters and nonfiresetters to any of the story categories. These data contain no support for the idea that sexual motivation is commonly involved in arson.

Preventing faking in phallometric assessments of sexual preference.

This study evaluated a method of preventing sexual preference faking in phallometric assessments employing audiotaped stimuli. The stimuli were stories describing neutral heterosocial interactions, consenting heterosexual activity, rape, and nonsexual violence. Sixteen normal heterosexual males were each tested with ordinary instructions, with fake instructions (i.e., to appear sexually interested in rape and nonsexual violence but not in consenting sex), and with fake instructions while performing a secondary semantic tracking task. The tracking task was to press one button whenever sexual activity was being described and another button whenever violence occurred. This simple task was designed to focus subjects' attention on only the critical elements of the stories. Group data indicated that subjects could fake inappropriate preferences when instructed to do so without the semantic tracking task but could not when the task was required. The implications of these findings for ethical practice and for the theoretical interpretation of phallometric assessment data were discussed.

A comparison of three methods of scoring penile circumference changes.

There are presently three widely used methods of scoring penile circumference data. The present experiment attempted to determine the ability of each method to explain the variance within a data set. A total of 19 subjects were presented with 20 photographic slides assigned to five categories: neutral, female adult, female adolescent, male adult, and male adolescent. Erectile responses to each slide were recorded and the data analyzed in terms of the raw scores, percentage of full erection, and a z-score transformation. Results indicated that the z scores captured the highest proportion of the variance (52.7%), followed by the percentage scores (32.5%), and the raw scores (30.1%). Findings are discussed in terms of their research and clinical implications.

Crisis prevention and intervention training for psychiatric hospital staff.

A 5-day course designed to train psychiatric hospital staff verbal and physical methods of preventing violence and injury when dealing with upset patients was taught to 89 staff from maximum and less secure wards. Compared to no-treatment controls, experimental subjects improved significantly on four tests of crisis-related tests and knowledge. Questionnaire and self-report measures from staff and patients on the training wards also indicated positive course effects. Assault frequencies decreased immediately after the course and staff injuries on experimental wards were reduced after the course relative to control wards.